Mr Blue
by Lilys Eyes
Summary: When the Governor still believed in a cure. Oneshot


There are crayons strewn all over the carpet and he accidently steps on one as he drapes his jacket across the arm of the chair. It splinters into waxy fragments of _Caribbean Green_ under his weight.

"I´m sorry, Penny, I´ll buy you a new one ,promise."

Once this madness was over, once Penny was well again, he`d buy her a large box of high- quality artists crayons, not those cheap, brittle ones that hardly contained any pigment.

The girls´ head droops low over the coloring book spread out before her on the floor, a thin string of rust- colored saliva suspended from her lips, one of her hands sluggishly grinding two crayons together.

"Yeah, I´m hungry too." Smiling slightly, he wipes her mouth with his sleeve before placing a bowl of dark- red, gelatinous chunks of meat before her.

Now he isn`t really hungry at all, but he`s brought himself a cup of coffee to drink while Penny eats her meal. They always used to have dinner together…before and he doesn`t want to let that tradition die completely just because of the current extraordinary circumstances. Children needed stability.

Sipping his coffee, he watches her in silence, grateful for every bite that disappears between her lips. A healthy appetite was always a good sign, you weren`t beyond hope as long as you still felt like eating, everybody knew that. And Penny was ravenous.

Her meal soon finished, the girl lets her hands drop heavily into the empty bowl. Bending to pick it up and place it on the table beside him, he resolves to bring her a still a little more generous portion tomorrow. He mops a few sticky specks from her mouth with a paper napkin and gently pulls her into his lap.

Gazing down at the coloring book still on the floor, he tries to make out any figures or shapes in the jagged lines the crayon has left all over the paper. The black outline beneath them depicts an old-fashioned farmhouse. _Tullie Smith House_ it was called, if he remembers correctly. He carefully picks the book up and places it in Penny`s lap.

"Remember that house, Penny?" He asks softly. " Remember Atlanta? Peachtree Street? Underground Atlanta and World of Coca Cola? I´m sure you remember _that_. We couldn`t get you away from the sampling bar with all those different sodas. You insisted you had to try all of them."

They`d been to Atlanta when Penny was five. She`d talked about World of Coca Cola and how she was going to work there one day for weeks. And he`d sworn himself she would have that chance, he`d see to that. She`d get well again and grow up to be a healthy and happy woman and if she still wanted to then, she`d even work at that goddamn World of Coca Cola.

The girl emits a guttural gurgle, her head sinking limply against his shoulder, her sickly, sweet breath brushing against his cheek. He very, very gently presses his lips against her hair.

"Knew you`d remember that," He whispers.

He slowly leafs through the book, wondering if Penny has drawn anything else apart from those lines. She hasn't, but maybe he`s just too old and lacks the imagination to be ableto see it. Penny´s fingers begin to scrabble across the grainy paper of the page before her, she was getting restless again. Hopefully it would pass, he loathed having to restrain her. He lightly grasps her small cold hands in one of his large warm ones, covering her eyes with the other. Sometimes that was enough to calm her …sometimes.

"Shhh, it`s okay, Princess, it`s okay," He soothes her softly. "I know you´re in pain, and I wish to God I could make it go away but…you`ll get better soon, never forget that…you´ll get better…I swear."

He almost chokes on those last words, but they do seem to calm the girl as she bonelessly slumps against him and he silently thanks God, or whoever will listen, that he wouldn`t have to put that awful hood over her head again just yet. Penny´s chin sinks onto her chest, almost as if she`d fallen asleep and he begins to rock her ever so slightly, the way he`d so often done when she was a baby. Suddenly he feels bone-weary, what if this was a nightmare from which he would never wake Penny again?

But he mustn´t think that, he mustn`t allow doubt to weaken him, he had to be strong for her, no matter what. Brushing his lips against her temple, he almost subconsciously begins to hum softly. What was the name of that song? Penny`s mother had often sung it when Penny couldn`t seem to fall asleep. _Mr. Blue_ , he recalls, an odd choice maybe, but Penny had liked it so he sings it for her. 

_I`m Mr. Blue_

 _I`m here to stay with you_

 _And no matter what you do_

 _When you`re lonely, I´ll be lonely too_

Unseen, Penny`s fingers shakily trace a blue line on the paper.


End file.
